Our family has visited Ghana at various different times. I (Chris) have visited Ghana on mission trips three times. Dana has also visited three times although one of those was not with me. She spent over three weeks there last summer assisting the Chinn’s (the family we will be serving with) in moving into their new home and supporting a short-term team that was visiting from the Seattle area. Hannah has been two times and Griffin once. We are all preparing to go back this summer with a team from NewBranch Community Church (our home church).

Dana had the opportunity to visit this past summer with the knowledge that we would be living and ministering there full time. This upcoming trip will be my first in country with that same knowledge. Somehow I expect this trip to be different from all the rest. As I look around at the needs I’ll see them through a different lens. I’ll be seeing needs and praying about how I may be able to be used by God to meet needs on the ground. That’s exciting!

We will be going on this trip with people we’ve gone with before and with some who haven’t been before. We will be going with eyes open to the next phase of our lives. We will be going knowing that the Chinn’s aren’t just people we only connect with once a year on a visit and occasionally on SKYPE but that they are servants we will be living and working with. We will be going knowing that God has called us to a great task. We will be going knowing that there are people behind to hold the ropes. We will be going knowing that God is in control of everything. We will be going!

Are you going? Where is God calling you to serve Him? It could be on a foreign mission field or it could be right in your own neighborhood. Wherever it is, go.